


These Foolish Things or Feste Walks Into A Bar

by tricksterlovegodling



Category: Fools’ Guild Mystery, The Fools' Guild Mystery Novels - Alan Gordon, Twelfth Night - Shakespeare
Genre: Crossdressing, Dark Viola, Drinking, F/M, Paranoid Feste, Puns & Word Play, maybe? - Freeform, the author doesn't remember what other humans are like or tags are for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:33:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24066637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tricksterlovegodling/pseuds/tricksterlovegodling
Summary: The Guild is a dangerous life, so Feste suspects it’s no coincidence Viola suddenly finding him one night and acting a bit too friendly.ORFeste will tell you whatever keeps you buying him drinks
Relationships: Feste/Viola | Cesario (Twelfth Night)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 3





	These Foolish Things or Feste Walks Into A Bar

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn’t trying to accomplish anything when I wrote this, and you’re probably not trying to accomplish anything by reading it, so it’s a win/win situation.   
> This is a modern au of the Fool’s Guild world, Feste is only this angsty in the first book, and I think it’s because he’s not with Viola, but I love some angst, so brace yourselves.

Love’s a foolish thing, so I greet it like the sneaky little bastard it is, and I remain the fool but for completely different reasons. It’s no news some feel particularly foolish towards those whose paths keep meeting theirs. My path and the lady’s had the bad habit of meeting from time to time, without any planning required. Through the years we had wondered at that, suspected one another’s motives when there was never any, given each other polite space and a friendly nod of acknowledgement.

This time, she simply walked up to me, and sat on the opposite bench. “Mind if I join you?” she smiled in a delight I suspected had more to do with the freedom she experienced on moments like those than with my familiar face.

“Please, give me the pleasure of your company,” I said, surprised she would choose to waste any time on me when she never had much of it. “I don’t see your usual escort, did he lose interest in those little adventures of yours?”

“I should hope so, he’s dead,” she made light of the news, maybe a little too harshly for the girl I remembered clearer than yesterday. “But I’m a big boy, I can take care of myself in a nice place like this.”

I had to squint to find the boy in her, once you know it, he’s never as convincing, but those good people around us didn’t know the secret, they saw the boy and never wondered why his eyes looked so tired, or why his scowl creased his face so deeply. Not the healthiest thirteen year-old you’ve ever seen, but you wouldn’t expect that from a boy up this late in such an establishment. Still impressive for a woman of thirty-two. 

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said honestly. I had no special place for her husband in my heart like  
I had for the girl she’d once been, but they made each other happy for all I could observe and what more do you want for the one love stolle from you?

“It was some time now,” she assured both of us. “Three years.”

“And you couldn’t find a new partner in your escapades?” I asked, unconvinced one as lovely as her should have trouble finding company. 

“Most men aren’t as charmed by this as he used to be,” she referred to the boy act. “Shocking, I know.”

“That’s only half an answer,” I insisted. 

“Viola will have no husband I don’t approve of,” she said, and for a second I actually saw a cocky, slightly inebriated boy, as convincing as before I knew the truth. 

“How much did you have to drink?” 

“Do you see a drink in my hand?” It was no answer, but then she shook her head and explained: “I have these nights less and less, and to be honest, unlike drinking, they never lose their thrill. Are you performing tonight?” she changed the subject. 

“Looking like this?” I pointed at my clean face and civilian clothes. “No, I’m here for the fine ambience, like you.”

She rolled up her eyes in a display of how much faith she put in my statement. Her presence always triggered a pain that wasn’t really anywhere, so it took me longer than it should have to consider she had spotted me fast enough without my makeup. She looked seriously at me, as if searching for something on my face. It made me wary, not knowing what went through her mind, and her trick working on some part of me, making me anxious that boy was eyeing me like that.

I’m ashamed to say she managed to steal my drink with that look, but not that ashamed, because she drank from my cup and when it comes to dreams, one clings to whatever scrap they can. Which is why I was so suspectful when she said: “Come to my room with me.”

She didn’t look like she was joking but I couldn’t think of a single good reason why she would want me in her room. I could fantasize, I’m only human, but a real motive behind the invitation? She could only be up to something. I was slightly tempted to find out what, as usual. But I obviously didn’t hide my concern very well. She studied my face some more. “Can’t be seen going to a room with a boy?” Her offense in my lack of response sounded genuine. 

“What are you, thirteen? I could go to jail.”

“I’m twenty-two,” she flashed her fake id for a second, I didn’t have time to catch the name. 

“Still Cesario?” I had to ask.

“If you like, but to the others no.”

“My favorite’s still Viola,” I informed. 

“You could call me that in the bedroom,” she shrugged. 

“Just how much trouble that will get me into is the problem here, isn’t it?” I remarked, smiling tightly. 

“Not as much as you enjoy, I guess.”

“Why do you say I enjoy trouble? I’m trying to avoid it,” I corrected. 

“I know you like trouble, because you don’t like how simple this is,” she observed. 

“I remember your preference for the unusual.”

“And what’s usual about this?” she challenged. 

“Nothing, I suppose,” I shrugged, deciding I might as well die of this.

She led the way to her bedroom upstairs, a private space with the same distasteful atmosphere as the downstairs but quieter and more comfortable. She took off her shoes and sat on the bed, expecting me to do the same, while I struggled to understand what she was really trying to accomplish here.

“Do you like the boyish look or should I take it off?”

I couldn’t believe it, she had to be bluffing. “Take it off,” I told her, convinced it was too much to expect.

She looked confused by my just standing there at a certain distance, but it didn’t stop her and she didn’t question it. She took off the many layers that made her shape into that of a boy, and the result was without a doubt better. I had wondered about that very sight for so long, and convinced myself the years had treated her a lot worse than this, just to make that loss easier to bear.

“Are you joining me?” she asked, looking impatient, and I couldn’t blame her. 

Whatever she did to me after this would be all the more cruel because of her seduction. She could’ve gotten almost anything from me through simpler methods, yet this was how she chose to trap me. It’s true, she looked sweeter than most lures, but how perverse that my heart’s desire should be granted under whatever dirty circumstances were about to unfold. It wouldn’t be the first time one of the few things I held sacred was perverted, but I still wasn’t convinced it wouldn’t be the last. 

Well, I might as well enjoy myself while it lasts, I decided, undressing hastily, and going to bed. Whatever defense I had left crumbled when she touched my face tenderly and brought her lips to mine.

Considering my mistrust of this too good to be true situation, you could expect me to say I hurried through some steps of our little interlude, to which I say I never pass on an opportunity to fool around. And if I died in no less than her company, wouldn’t it be a great way to go?

You’re probably thinking she had by then successfully distracted me from my suspicions and had me at her mercy, and you’d be completely right. More than that even, I was sold, whatever lie this was, I willingly believed. In my defense, you’d believe her too if you could hear her, if you could feel her warmth all over you, if you held her through the tremors you took pride in bringing on her. And because she let me call her Viola, I did, over and over.

Being younger, she had an advantage on me when it comes to energy, but my decades of foolish experiences had always depended on my ability to read my audience well and respond accordingly. And let me tell you this much, what an enthusiastic audience she was! I’ve seen my share of fake enthusiasm in my life, sure, but I can tell you this was the real deal. Like I said, tumbling is a specialty of mine. I don’t think it’s bragging when I say they call me king of misrule for a good reason, it’s not bragging when it’s true. I can’t take all the credit, though: when she rides, an ass believes it’s a stallion.

Oh, somethings you just can’t put to words. I mean, isn’t it why I have to tell you a whole story about it? To shed some of this faint light on Love before he flies? But even if I gave you the play by play, words wouldn’t do it justice. Have you ever been gifted what you always wanted and it was even better than you expected? There you go.

Do you ever wonder why you’re so sure you’re not dreaming when you’re awake? So there I was, slowly realizing what had just happened was no dream, very sure it was really her but still clueless to why she’d bring me to her room and wear me out like she had. I was going back to my suspicions, when her words just made my mind go blank: “I’ve wanted this for so long.” I was supposed to be the one saying that. “It used to be more of an idle thought, you know,” she went on stealing my lines. “An idea to play around with when I was bored. Lately, I just hoped I’d run into you again before I got too old.” She sighed. “Why do we always end up finding each other? There must be a reason.” I didn’t trust my own ears. Was she saying what I thought she was? “Wasn’t that your cue for a joke?” she teased, starting to notice my unusual silence. “Am I boring you with this talk?” she asked, starting to let go of me.

“No,” I struggled to voice out, “please go on,” I pulled her close back to me, suddenly afraid she would leave me.

“So, where was I?” she laughed softly against my chest. 

“You were telling me you play with yourself thinking about me,” I teased.

Her laugh wasn’t so soft this time. “I didn’t say that. But you’re not wrong.”

“Always with the unusual preferences.”

“You know, for a moment there I thought you would say no,” she confessed, smiling, looking at me with unrestrained affection. 

“I thought you knew me better than that.” I would never have said no to her. 

“So you never say no to an invitation like mine?” Was that a hint of possessiveness I detected? 

“How often do you think beautiful women invite me to their beds?” I laughed at the idea myself to prevent humiliation. And that brought me to: “Your invitation was suspiciously generous, a wiser man might’ve said no, but wisdom isn’t really my trade, is it?”

“What’s so suspicious about a lonely woman looking for company she actually likes?”

“It sounds innocent enough when you say it like that, but the way I see it’s highly suspicious a fellow of my condemnable habits is the company a distinguished duchess actually likes, and to make it even more unlikely, it’s not just any distinguished duchess, but the one I can never seem to stop thinking about. Doesn’t it sound suspicious to you?”

She laughed. She kissed me. She played with my hair and smiled like she knew she owned me. “Yes, very suspicious. I think you’ll be safer here with me,” she sounded very condescending saying that, but I soon had her giggling as I went back to my field of expertise. 

“Let’s never leave this room,” I suggested. 

And we never did.

Fine, that last part’s a lie. But the rest’s true, I swear.

**Author's Note:**

> I like this ending, what do you think?  
> I didn’t question what I was doing when I wrote this story and for a while I didn’t even know what this was. I took my sweet time editing it, and that was good exercise. During the editing process I had this weird thought: Viola’s pov is the song Twenty-two by Taylor Swift.


End file.
